


The Hazel Tree

by Ksanral



Category: Half Life Trilogy - Sally Green
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 00:38:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6633910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ksanral/pseuds/Ksanral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a few years after the end of Half Lost, and Celia takes someone to the tree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hazel Tree

The boy was barely old enough to understand it all. He didn't look exactly like his father but if she didn't look too hard she could pretend it was him. She took the boy to the cabin, she showed him the drawings, and weird enough she found that her eyes were full of tears while he watched attentively at the pencil lines on the papers. She explained who the people she was showing him were, and he seemed to understand.  
“Is this him?” the thrill of excitement in his voice was out of place with the gloom feelings that bubbled in her heart. “Is this my father?” he said with reverence.   
“No, Edge, he’s not. That’s Marcus, your grandfather,” she said waiting for a reaction at the name that didn’t happen.   
“But he looks like me!”  
 _Not exactly_ , she thought. “Your father looked like him a lot, but he never portrayed himself. I’m sorry,” she added looking carefully at the disappointed face the boy made.  
“Well, if looked like his father than he looked like this.” He exclaimed not subdued one bit. Celia found herself repressing a smile. This boy was so different from Nathan, she didn’t know how she thought they could be similar in any way.   
She told him the truth about everything, even though his mother already did (which surprised Celia a bit, but not much after all). Only one portrait she didn’t show him. Gabriel’s. It was the only one that didn’t have the little note ‘to Edge from Nathan’, and she always thought Nathan did it for himself not for his son. She understood now why he made all the drawings and why he asked her to keep them. He already knew he was going to do what he did. It was a long time before they were finished, the boy asked so many questions, she thought she would lose patience, but she didn’t.   
She took him to the den after that. Annalise wasn’t there, Celia’s been peremptory about not having her in her cabin and she was absolutely sure Nathan didn’t want her in his den, he didn’t want anyone there and Celia never allowed anyone to go, not even Arran. But she knew he would want Edge to know, because it didn’t matter what everyone told him about Marcus, Nathan still wanted to meet him, and knew Edge would wish the same.   
When they got to the hazel tree she had already warned the boy about its look. The boy faltered when he saw it but steadied himself and walked closer.  
“Edge, meet Nathan.” she whispered. Edge looked confused, he wasn’t used to magic so he didn’t quite understand what he was seeing.  
“My father’s buried here?” he asked.  
“No, boy, that’s your father.” She pointed at the tree, but then looked away, at the overgrown den where he lived and at the ground where he planted his roots.   
“My father’s a tree?”  
“Yes.”  
“Why?”  
That was an expected question but very difficult nonetheless. “Has your mother told you about the fights?” Celia had avoided the topic in the cabin.   
“She said there was a big fight because the government in the UK wasn’t good and so it needed to be changed. She said that my father fought against it and won,” he recited like he was telling something he learnt by heart.  
“Yes, but as in any fight, there were casualties. Someone very very important to your father died,” she wasn’t one for sugarcoating things, “and he had to do very difficult things.”  
“Mom said there were a lot of bad people he had to fight,” he nodded like he understood everything, but Celia doubted he even knew how many people Nathan had to kill, or how many people hurt him. And she doubted he knew much about the people who made his life less miserable, or about the only person who made him happy.   
“Yes, there were,” she told him.  
“I don’t understand.”  
It wasn’t his fault, Celia barely understood, and she knew Nathan quite well. “Nathan was always attuned to nature. He had a very powerful Gift and he could turn to animals,” Edge nodded, excited, like it was some sort fairy tale and not the truth, “After the war, he didn’t want to fight anymore. He lived here, alone, but he couldn’t be happy without that special person in his life,” while talking Celia wondered when she became so soft.  
“He became a tree so he couldn’t feel sad anymore?” Edge asked.   
“No, he could became an animal for that. I think, he never told me this, but I think he wanted to feel sad—”  
“WHAT!? Who wants to feel sad!?” he interrupted, shouting, a couple of birds flew always scared.   
“He didn’t want to feel _sad_ , Edge, he wanted to _feel_ , do you understand this?” she asked, looking down at his mop of black hair just like Nathan’s.  
“Maybe...” the boy looked up at her, doubtful, “But does he feel as a tree?”  
“I like to think he does. He found a place where to plant his roots, not only metaphorically, “she smiled and the boy grinned too, “he’s close to that person he loves—,” she indicated the ground, and he saw the boy’s eyes widen in surprise and understanding.  
“So he can be happy?” he asked in a whisper.   
“Exactly, so he can be happy,” she said, but her voice broke as she had to swallow tears.  
He saw the boy reach for the tree trunk, but stopping to look at Celia. “Can I touch it? Him?”  
“I guess so…” she nodded. She never touched it, she always sat there reading to Nathan, but she never touch the trunk or the leaves and branches. It wasn’t her, it wasn’t their relationship, and Nathan didn’t really liked to be touched. But she knew he wouldn’t mind if it was Edge touching him.   
The boy tentatively brushed his finger against one of the long scars in the trunk. He didn’t seem to understand that they reflected the scars on Nathan’s body, and Celia wasn’t going to tell him that now. She watched as he got bold and wrapped both his hands around the trunk, he couldn’t quite circled it all, but she guessed it was normal for a child to be smaller than his father. She heard him say something but it was barely a whisper and she didn’t understand the words.   
After a minute the boy turned and nodded to Celia. “Thank you,” he said and they walked away together, Celia turned around and smiled to the tree, imagining what Nathan would say and how many swear words he would try not to say because his boy was still too young to hear them.  
He brought Edge back to his parents, feeling like something fell into place at last. For a moment, that night, alone in her cabin, she wished she could turn into a tree too.

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished Half Lost and I was crying for the last few chapters as you can imagine. When I calmed down this came to my mind and I had to write it.


End file.
